


Tears

by AtropaAzraelle (Polyoxyethylene)



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Gen, M/M, Post-Altissia, Subtle Gladnis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:55:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24471637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polyoxyethylene/pseuds/AtropaAzraelle
Summary: Ignis has awoken without his sight and there are difficult conversations ahead for all of them.
Relationships: Gladiolus Amicitia/Ignis Scientia
Comments: 8
Kudos: 66





	Tears

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there. I'm not dead.
> 
> With thanks to Swordy for the prompt suggestion. I wanted to write something angsty so here we are.

The scars don't hurt. Ignis wishes they would. If they hurt perhaps this might feel more real. Waking up and seeing nothing but the blurred, grey shadow of the room, a patch of slightly brighter grey where he knew the window to be, might feel less like a dream if there was pain.

Or perhaps not a dream. When he dreams he still sees. He sees the Accursed tipping his hat with a supercilious smile, and Noct being dragged into the darkness. He sees Gladio, his face twisting with Ardyn's expression, hope turning to despair as it happens.

He wakes with his heart pounding to a grey room where he can't even make out the shape of his hand in front of his face, and he's not sure which reality he prefers.

Noct sleeps, his fight with Leviathan exhausted him. It's been two days since Ignis awoke, but Noct has yet to rise. Prompto assures him he still seems well. “Maybe she did something?” he asks, quietly, keeping his vigil by Noct's bedside. If Ignis listens very carefully he can hear Noct's breathing.

She. Another loss they have suffered. One that Ignis does not wish to have to explain to Noct, but knows one of them will. It brings back memories of that fateful day in Galdin Quay. His throat had clenched around the words, stopping them from leaving his mouth, and all he'd been able to do was offer the newspaper with those awful headlines out to the others for them to read for themselves.

Perhaps Noct will already know. “Perhaps she did,” he agrees with Prompto, and hopes.

Prompto's vigil is by Noct's bedside. Gladio's is by Ignis's. When he first awoke, his whole body aching from the magic and the fight, into darkness, Gladio's hand had grasped his as he felt for the light switch. It was already daylight, Gladio had told him. Can't you see it?

He couldn't. Still can't if the day is dismal enough. Bright sunshine can pierce the fog his deal with the Lucii had drawn over his eyes, but even that gives him nothing but a grey pall. Artificial lights bathe everything in a duller grey again. He keeps his eyes closed; it's easier than trying to fight his instinct to use his vision to get around, and keeping them open too long gives him a throbbing at the temples that lances into his brain.

He did up his own shirt this morning. For a split second it was a victory, and then the very fact that something so simple as dressing himself, something he'd done every day since before he could remember was now a _victory_ sent a spike of anger through his chest.

Gladio's presence is doing the same. Handing him a spoon because he can't seem to get food to stay on a fork, brushing his hair for him in a morning, helping him put his shoes on because Ignis can't tell the left from the right until it's already secure on his foot. Gladio is being wonderful, patient, caring, infuriating. Every little thing Gladio helps him with makes Ignis's blood boil that little bit more.

Rather Gladio than Prompto, he knows. He could never bear to be this helpless in front of Prompto, or Noct. Gladio has seen him dripping sweat from training, and taken him for pizza after an early disaster with a recipe. Gladio has seen Ignis fail before. He's always been supportive. But now there's a melancholia to his support. Gladio's voice is hushed, his touch gentle. The sound of his snoring at night is the only reference Ignis has for his position in the world and he hates it; he hates being so dependent.

The faint sound of something sliding over the table reaches Ignis's ears. He's learning to use his hearing more. At least the Lucii left him that.

His fingers contact metal, the handle of cutlery, and recoils. He'd been patting the bare wooden table, and suddenly the spoon was there.

Ignis huffs. He can't help it. “Let me struggle.”

“It's just a spoon, Iggy.” Gladio replies, his voice low, lacking that richness and humour, the spark of life that had always been with him. Ignis's vision is dulled, and Gladio seems to have dulled with it.

“To you,” he replies, his voice sharp.

Gladio lapses into silence. The faint click of his fork and knife on his plate pierces Ignis's ears, louder than words. Gladio has already cut Ignis's food up for him; Ignis had tried, and spilled some of his meal onto the table. He scoops some of his food onto the spoon, unsure of what he was picking up with it. At least the chefs in Altissia, as much as their supply lines had been interrupted, were still up to scratch.

He drops the spoon and pushes his plate away.

“What's wrong?” Gladio's words are muffled around a mouthful of food.

Ignis shakes his head, gripping the edge of the table as he stands. “I'm not hungry,” he declares, and moves to his left. He musters his dignity, willing his legs to take him a straight line, his shoulders back as he walks to where the door must be.

His foot contacts furniture, his knee following it a split second later. Ignis reaches out with both hands, finding a dresser, and he follows it to its corner, and then to the wall.

A hand settles on his shoulder. “Where are you going?”

“To Noct,” Ignis answers, but the name creaks in his throat, strained through anger and humiliation. He can't cut his own food on a plate, can't find a door in a room. What use is he to Noct, to anyone, to himself, if he can't do the basics?

“Ignis.” Gladio's voice is steady, but concerned. The use of 'Ignis', not 'Iggy' speaks volumes. Firm hands try to turn him around, directing him back to face the other direction. “Talk to me.”

Ignis's breath catches in his throat. He fights against being turned around. His eyes burn, but he doesn't know if he can cry through the damage done to his eyes and his face. He wants to, but not here, and not now.

“I can't use a fork,” he states, his voice wavering traitorously, “can't shave myself, can't cook, or see, or _fight_ ,” he continues, “but I can do this.” He can go to Noct, he can keep vigil by him. Being there is all he's good for right now.

“You just need time,” Gladio tells him. “And practice.”

Ignis scoffs. “We don't have time.”

“We've got all the time you need,” Gladio insists. “Cid's taking the boat back to Cape Caem once Noct's awake, you can recover there.”

Ignis freezes. They'd come so far and now they were to head back? And yet, perhaps...

The vision he'd seen. Noct being dragged into the darkness of the Crystal. The fate the Astrals had set out for him. If they turned back maybe they could find another way?

“We'll come and get you once we have the Crystal.”

Now Ignis turns, his eyes opening as he tries to find the shadow of Gladio in the fuzz of the room's light. He hopes he's looking at Gladio, and not to either side of him.

“No.”

“Iggy-”

“I will not be left behind.”

He hears the sigh from Gladio. Perhaps this is a conversation for which he's prepared himself too, just as Ignis had mentally rehearsed his one with Noct. “You said it yourself,” Gladio replied, “you can't see, can't fight, hell, Iggy, you can't even walk fast. What are you gonna do when we run into a daemon?”

The words make sense. Ignis knows they do and yet his ire rises above his sense. His heart pounds in his ears and his chest, his fingers tingle. “We will cross that bridge when we come to it.”

“You'll fall off that bridge when we come to it,” Gladio retorts. “We nearly lost you back there. Your fighting days are done. You need to recover, and train. Learn braille or something,” he adds, “and you can rejoin us when it's over.”

The words spear Ignis through the heart. It's made all the worse by the insidious voice in the back of his own head telling him that Gladio is right. Worse, that Gladio is being the reasonable one.

“How dare you.”

“Ignis, I'm serious.”

Gladio is. Ignis knows it. He wouldn't jest about something so life-changing, and still Ignis beats against the painful truth with every fibre of his being because if he isn't with them, if he isn't by Noct's side, then what even is he? A broken, blind man. Nothing more. Everything he has ever trained to be, everything he has ever known is tied up in his place with Noct and Gladio, and now Gladio suggests he can be sent back, broken and beaten, removed from the group like the useless limb he knows he has become.

“As am I,” he replies. “You will find that decision is not yours to make. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to Noct.”

He turns again, striking out for the door once more. He finds it on the second attempt, and the handle comes to him on the third. His breath is sharp in his throat and painful in his chest. A part of him hopes that Gladio will follow, make his apologies and tell him he's merely worried. Ignis knows he's worried. Perhaps the only person more worried is Ignis himself, and yet the mere idea of abandoning their journey, of making his way back to Lucis alone is worse even than the blindness.

He opens the door to Noct's room slowly.

“Hey!” Prompto says, bright, and cheery, and so different from Gladio's low, concerned tones. “Where's the big guy?”

“Eating,” Ignis answers, willing his voice to remain steady. “I thought I might relieve you so you could do the same.”

“I already ate,” Prompto answers. For a moment Ignis despairs of him taking the hint, but then he adds, “but I could really do with a shower. I'm starting to smell like a Garula.”

Ignis forces a small smile onto his lips. “I wasn't going to comment,” he says.

Prompto's chuckle is worth the effort of making the joke. “Thanks, Ignis,” he says. “I'll be right back,” he adds.

Ignis shakes his head. “Take your time,” he answers. “I won't be going anywhere.”

He doesn't move until the door closes, signalling Prompto has left the room. Bending down, he reaches out to find the edge of the bed. His fingers contact something, material, and he follows it to the corner and around. Noct's steady breathing is the only other sound in the room. Perhaps Lady Lunafreya had done something to protect Noct's life.

If only she could have done more.

Ignis sits himself gingerly on the corner of the bed, listening to the sound of Noct in his slumber. His back bows, his shoulders drop, and his breath gasps out of him.

It seems he can still cry, after all.


End file.
